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Put your hands up if you’ve heard of ‘an Apple a day keeps the doctor away’! Well, apples certainly didn’t manage to stop Covid… Indeed, people talk about health and are eager to stay healthy all the time. But how? How to make ‘correct’ choices in buying food? What’s the out-of-sight food production like? Step in tonight and walk out with better understanding on what your body wants you to know!
Watch out the Labels: How Perceptions Shape Us – Our Diets and Our Languages
Xinran Gao
(PhD Researcher, University of Warwick)
When we speak of "health halos", we are referring to the way language influences our perceptions of healthy food and dietary choices. Language not only reflects but also shapes our societal attitudes in subtle yet powerful ways. But is language itself inherently so powerful, or is its influence shaped by the labels we assign to it? Just as diets can be burdened or empowered by societal labels, so too can languages. Let's explore the profound impacts these labels have on our perceptions and behaviours, and consider what life might look like if we dared to look beyond them.
Bacteriophages – the enemy of my enemy
Branko Rihtman
(Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Warwick)
Bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) are a neglected tool in our fight against bacterial diseases, which has been experiencing resurgence in the light of rising antibiotic resistance. In this talk I will give a short overview of biology of bacteriophages, their role in fundamental biological research and their contribution to our study of molecular biology, as well as an overview of their comeback as the life-saving weapon in our fight against infections by bacteria resistant to all antibiotics.
(CANCELLED) Which is the healthiest milk?
Lucy Aphramor
(Associate Professor, Coventry University)
(CANCELLED) We are truly sorry that because of unforeseen reasons, this talk has been cancelled. But we have prepared something much more fun and interesting for the night, which will remain a surprise until you come!
What does it mean when we say a food is healthy? How much difference can the type of milk we drink or don’t drink actually make to heart health? And who are public health nutrition messages for anyway? For example, advice to avoid full fat milk can be inappropriate for people with small appetites. When lactose intolerance is the norm globally, why is milk so esteemed? Lots of factors complicate ‘food swaps’ made for nutritional-ecological-moral reasons. Focusing on milk we’ll engage with biomedical, behavioural, and planetary science – together with the knowledge and experience in the room – to build nutrition messages that move beyond food confusion (and maybe guilt) and that make sure no one is left behind.
What does it mean when we say a food is healthy? How much difference can the type of milk we drink or don’t drink actually make to heart health? And who are public health nutrition messages for anyway? For example, advice to avoid full fat milk can be inappropriate for people with small appetites. When lactose intolerance is the norm globally, why is milk so esteemed? Lots of factors complicate ‘food swaps’ made for nutritional-ecological-moral reasons. Focusing on milk we’ll engage with biomedical, behavioural, and planetary science – together with the knowledge and experience in the room – to build nutrition messages that move beyond food confusion (and maybe guilt) and that make sure no one is left behind.
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